Marriage can be difficult for various reasons. Number one is probably selfishness, number two wrong expectations. They go hand in hand, really: people expect to get married and be made happy instead of doing their best to make the husband / wife happy. It's work, and a young couple in love rarely thinks of work – they think of happiness. This happiness is supposed to just happen, automatically, just because they are in love and they are going to be together, and it is supposed to last.

It does not work this way. It may in the beginning, but then the "in love" feeling will start fading, and it will require effort, from both spouses, to tend and nurture their love and to make the other person happy. Life happens, too. Financial difficulties, problems at work, taking care of kids. Responsibilities grow and so does the workload each spouse carries – or should carry, for that matter. This is when love is tested, as well as maturity, understanding, and patience.

Marrying for the wrong reasons will make marriage hard too. We all know of people who married just to get out of home, to prove something to someone, or because of peer pressure – “all my friends were getting married so I thought I had to as well.” Marriage is viewed as a solution to some kind of a problem. Surprise, surprise: turns out that it created more problems that it solved, if it did solve any. Why? Because you’re stuck with a person you do not love whom you expected to somehow get your life on track, and they can’t because they are only human. And guess what – they may be expecting the same from you. We are back to selfishness and wrong expectation again.

Marrying the wrong person, which is often caused by what has been addressed in the previous paragraph, is another reason for marital problems. People marry because they think they have to, and they marry “what's available” instead of waiting for love and searching for the best. This will backfire, too.

Other people do fall in love and it clouds their judgment, or they may see the other person’s shortcomings but hope to change them. Wrong, big time. If you marry someone viewing them as a project to work on, I can assure you that you will be working on it forty years later – if you are still married, that is.

This article is far from being a complete analysis of what causes marital problems, I am sure there are other situations, some of them rather unique, that are not covered here. However, I believe that the basic observation I have shared is true: there would be more happy marriages if it wasn’t for selfishness and wrong expectations.